Monday, February 15, 2010

An Icing Tip You'll Fall in Love With

This year wasn't the most memorable Valentine's Day ever, but it wasn't horrible. T had surgery last week and has to be home recovering so even though he has had access to a calendar for months I was sort of okay with purchasing my own gift.

I ended up deciding that he'll be buying me a bamboo roman shade from Lowe's this week. Pricier than what he'd normally do, but that's what you get when you tell your wife she can buy her own gift. I'll use the shade a lot longer than a dozen roses.

While I was out pondering what to buy myself yesterday, I eyed the chocolates at Target, but I ended up deciding to bake some heart shaped cookies in honor of Valentines Day.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you've seen my favorite rolled sugar cookies and the easy way I like to ice stuff. You also probably know that I am really truly surely not good at icing things. But I recently saw a great tip on The Martha Stewart Show (great to watch while you're ironing), and I thought I'd give it a go.

I started with a plain cookie:

Then I piped a border around the edges. The Wilton tip I used had a very small hole at the bottom:

Next, I used a tip with a much larger hole to dole some icing out in the center of the cookie:

And I used a knife to smooth it all out:

Warning:

If children want to "help," you may end up with this:

instead of this:

P.S. I used store-bought vanilla icing this time and colored it myself. Don't hate me.

Great tip, of course you were smart enough to listen to Martha! The cutest cookies, though are the ones decorating!! You're a good mamma. And I look forward to seeing the bamboo shade! Love that it won't wilt! ;D

Love your helpers, and you are a braver Mommy than I. I iced them myself, and let the child sprinkle the sprinkles...I know, I know, what about the child's creativity and all that jazz, but sometimes the perfectionist in me comes out and I can't stop her!

Good idea! How simple to make an outline around the outside. Simple, but I NEVER would've thought of it! Thank you for sharing it.

You're darn right: you'll enjoy a shade MUCH longer than roses. Somehow all the roses in stores at Valentine's Day make me sad. I think of all the men paying too much for flowers that will look horrible in two days.

By the way, I love your Balemtime's post! Those pictures of your girls are absolutely adorable. You just want to eat them. All up. With a spoon. So cute!

Oh, this is fantastic. I feel like sugar cookies are the perfect all-occasion treat. And store bought icing is the way to go. Well, unless you have my sister and her famous icing-making-ness around, but I usually don't.LOVELY!And if you're interested, we have a Friday Fun Find party- we'd love it if you'd link up!

Very nice job! We just made heart cookies too. I recently found out that you can melt the store bought icing and dip the tops of the cookies in the melted frosting. It gives you a pretty good iced top and is super easy too. You don't have to melt it for long in the microwave, but you want it slightly runny...and if you use strawberry icing, you don't even have to dye it.

Of course, yours look AWESOME and so much fun!!! I could go for a cookie after seeing how delicious they look!!! LOL

This is Me

I'm a stay-at-home mom of three kids, a fluffy Pomeranian, and a rambunctious German Shepherd puppy. Happily married to T. We live in Virginia, but I secretly dream of what it would be like to have a place in NYC to escape to for random girls' shopping weekends. Target is my home away from home. I stay sane by doing creative projects around my home and taking lots of pictures. Stick around for realistic inspiration...on a budget!

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